178018802 kalevi holsti the state war and the state of war select pages
TRANSCRIPT
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The state war and th
state
ofwar
invite external int . Wl m tat . Int mal war may calate or
(
states, but wars about and .th.
resides in the
f u n ~ r v e n t i o n
but their primary if not elusive etiology
amental quarrel b h
and the processes and
l
s a out t e natur of communi
ties
he question
is
whettero thems of state-building t fundamentally,
transported to nonE r e European concep
of
the tate can
be
I
d
- uropean enviro
repro ucible, no matt h nment . Is th tate infinitely
qu
ti
er w
at
the cont
t?
R
es
ons about an a ex ec
nt war
c rtainly
raise
Wars within ppropriate answer.
b and between co . .
~ t w n states. The latt thr mmunlties are not the same as wars
highl er oughout d E
Y
mstitutionalized and fo . mo ern uropean history were
war, we also think of unif rmahzed. That is why, when we think of
we orms ch
apons systems camp . ' ams of command sophistica ted
r li ' algns h ,
ega
a,
the laws of war and ' onors and decorations regimental
wars about , peace treaties F f ,
liz
d
communities and t ew o the e are relevant to
e . And th sates. These . . .
B .ti h ere seems to be I ttl wars are
not
mstituhona-
c ~ ~ :
'tiAmericans, Russians IPoe can do about them. The French,
. onal means of wagm' r guese, and others found out that
sanes JUSt d , g war again t
Cr on t work. "The s non-state-sponsored adver-
eveld (1991
2
7
,.
cold brutal f
t
irreleva t . ' IS that much p ' ac , write s
Martin
Van
n as an in tr resent-da li
ests over s ument for extend. Y rru tary power is simply
amounts t :?st .of the globe; by thimg ~ e f e n d i n g political inter-
military , s cntenon d d
cannot prevail or h power at all." And . ' .m ee , 1t scarce y
can the Unit d N settle quarrels b if maJor milita ry powers
f
e ations? p a out comm ty d d
ailed, but a fund erhaps it uru an statehoo ,
An organizati d a ~ e n t a l flaw in the can s ~ c c e e d where others have
on eslgn d organiZ ti h
faces fundamentall
.e
to prevent or he a on as to be corrected.
within states. Th ~ l f f e r e n t types f P settle wars between states
th
e difficulti
0
problem
e former Yugo
1
. es faced in S . s m wars
about
and
B t this s avla refl t h omaha and
u is anticipatin
ec
t e conceptu
1 most poignantly
in
to support the asse the analysis. First a flaws of the organization.
ha b r on that ' we must 1
ve een and will
Wars
of th
supp
Y the evidence
of the European a n ~ O ~ t i n u e to be fund e recent past and the future
wars of a "third kind old War experi:mentally different from those
. nces w
e are concerned with
2
ars of the third kin
In 1740, using a trumped-up claim to territorial title, Frederick the
Great invaded Austrian Empress Maria Theresa's domains in Silesia.
The war lasted
two
years, which
was
typical of the times. The Seven
Years
War (1751'H>3)
earned
that
title because combat lasted substan
tially longer than the norm of the eighteenth century. In the first half of
the twentieth century, most wars were fought
by
the organized armed
forces of two or more states, and decisive victories were usually
achieved within two years of the inauguration of hostilities. The Russo
Japanese War (1904-5), the Italian campaign in Libya in 1911, the
Balkan Wars of 1912-13, the Soviet-Polish War of 1920-2, and the
Soviet war against Finland, 1939--40, among others, lasted less than
two years, some only several months. Wars during the eighteenth
century
on
average lasted only one year (Levy 1983; Tilly 1990: 72).
1
Wars were not only relatively brief. Reflecting the Clausewitzian
concept of war, they
had
a regular sequence from beginning to end.
There was
an
initial crisis where diplomatic negotiations could not
reconcile the incompatible foreign policy or defense requirements
of
the states concerned.
n
ultimatum or an
incident - often
staged by
the
aggressor-
then led to a formal declaration of war. We
know
the
exact dates that eighteenth-, nineteenth-,
and
early twentieth-century
wars
commenced. Following the declarations of
war, armed
combat
led either to stalemate or, more often, to a decisive military defeat in a
single battle or a short series of battles. The defeated party then agreed
to a formal armistice and sued for peace. Both parties negotiated a
preliminary peace, which usually included the terms of military with-
Levy's figure is based on great-power wars only. The average war listed
in
my
previous study (Holsti 1991: 85-7) lasted four years.
19
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~ ~
The state war and the state ofwar
~ r a w a l and g e n e ~ a l principles that would guide th n gotiation of a
final peace. The ~ a l p e a c e would then be conclud d within a y ar or
n o
after the a r ~ s t i ~ e or preliminary peace. In the i ht
nth
and
runeteenth centunes, final peace treaties would often b di patched for
rev.iew by other interested governments that might make their own
clauns and re.commend amendments. The Congre of B din (1 78),
for example, mcorporated a number of change to th Tr
aty
of San
S ~ e f a n o that had been negotiated bilaterally b tw en the Ru sian
VIctors
over the Ottomans
in
1876
Th fin
1 d
f
. e a peace treaty s tabhshe a
new set o nghts, responsibilities and t .t .
1
d
b
' ern ona a )Ustrnent that were
to ecome part of established international
1
. .
new arrangements le
11
. tifi aw. ViOlations of those
punishment Wars
a
y
J t ~ s
anned reprisals or oth er forms of
. ere e rruddle stage f 1 1 d t d
sequences of intematio
1
fli o c ear y emarca e
na con cts and
th
.
We know that something h h etr permanent settlement.
as c anged wh th d
stages become blurred or
fail
to develop en ese sequences an
A typical war since
1945
has a very differ . . . .
precipitates them, and they typically
do
n ent profile.
No
smgle cnsts
There are no declarations of war th ot start at a
particular
date.
, ere are no se f . .
and few end with peace treaties D . . asons or campatgnmg,
terror, psychology, and actions eClSIV e ~ a t t l e s are few. Attrition,
R h
th
.
amst
ctvihans hi hl h b
at er an highly organized anned f g tg t com at.
hi ch
orces based . d
erar y, wars are fought by loosel kni on a strtct comman
lars, cells, and not infrequently by l ~ c a l l ~ t o u p s of regulars, irregu
or
no
central authority. Y ased Warlords under little
Wars of the late twentieth century typ
Vietrninh took
up
arms after Japanese
tcally
last for decades The
. evacuati
f
achteved
v i c ~ o r y
t h i r ~ y.ears later. Eri:n
Indochina
in
1945.
wtthin the Ethioptan empue m 1961. Th
eans
began a rebellion
sometimes against each other -
for
thir ey
more
or less fought -
regime in
Ababa
c o l l a p ~ e d
in 1
99
{
f r ~ : r s
until. the Mengistu
people. Kashmiris have been fighting
0
a rebellion of its own
d
f
. . n and
off
.
en ce or annexation to.Paktstan, since
1948
.
e t t ~ ~ r
for indepen-
have sustamed armed resistance against
th
Minonties in Myanmar
the early 19
60
s. The East Timorese have e
e n t r a l
government ce
into Indonesia since 1975. Ulster was m
resisted
their incorp smti
a state
f
ora on
a n ~ 1995. Even w hen c t o r ~ o u s as was the case
0
War
between 1961
Entreans, no peace treaty IS negotiated. (Th
0
f the Vietnam d
peace accords in Paris in 1973, but imm
de
VIetnamese ne
e s t ~
atnd
. . . . e lately b go 1a e
proviSIOns and completed the military rout
f roke
the .
o South
v
u
mam
letnamese and
20
Wars of
he
third kind
American forces.) Most frequently, one set of governors replaces
another, so no new rights, responsibilities, or allocations between
states are made. The prize is not territory, resources, a crown,
or
avigation rights.
t
is the establishment
and
control of a_particular
J
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l t )
t l
t l
0
N
0
o
0
\ )
0
0
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The s
tate
war and
the state
of
war
Table 2.2 Tile decline of
nterstate
wars 1715 1995
Period
Avg. no. states in
central systema
1715-1814 19
t\o. centrJ system
mterstate warsb
Interstate wars/
s tate
per
yeJr
1815-1914
21
36
1918-1941 30
29
1945-1995 140 25
0.019
0.014
0.036
=
38
Note
a 0.005
b . average number of central st
excludes imperial wars ate system members fo
th
od
state syst
f
th ' wars among or a r c
pen
teenth cee:
o
e time (e.g., Boxer
r e b e l r g a ~
non -members of
the
central
include ~ e d r y .' antd w ~ r s of "national
lib;onti'
. u t ~ AmericJn
wars
in nine-
m erventions inv 1 ra
on
' smce 1945 [ t t
Source:
Holsti (
1991
) d o vmg signifi
1
. n
ers ate
wars
19 . , ata from 85-7 cant oss
of
hfe.
45
penod are from the appendix. '
1
40-
2
, and 214-16. Data for the post-
Table 2.3 Armed conflicts
per
state
y
.
~ 4 5 1 9 9 5
Region Number of
: ; = : ~ s ~ t a t t e s
Interstate Internal
Africa
43
: __nterventions wars
Middle East : ~ = ~ : : . : :
South Asia 18 0.16
Southeast Asia
7
0.61
East Asia 11 0.57
South America 6 0.45
c 12 o so
entral America/Caribbean 20 0.08
Balkans
/Eas
t Europe
8
0
.
20
Former USSR
15
0 3B
We:;t Europ e
18
Average
and domestic wars, although South
A .
0.86
1.22
2.00
1.82
0.50
0.67
0.50
0.25
0.47
0.16
0.85
armed combat of domestic
orig;,... -n..
has
the hi
h
. "' ne
fi
g est
fi
argument of thlS chapter are the avera gures that bes gure for
all the regions of the world not .
1
at
the
botto t support the
,
me
u m
N
tn of
T b
been
an
average of 0.85 internal wa g
Orfh A .
a le 2
.3:
in
I
. rs per state . '"enca th
on y 0.30 mterstate wars
per
state or . Since 1
945
' ere has
. , a ratio
of
2 '
corn
every mterstate
war and
armed
;,...terv
.
2
.9 do.... pared to
...
entton
1
'"Csti.
n
199()
c
Wars
for
2
The figures may be distorted by the number of l i l t ~ '
a reasonably
whereas many of the wars were fought wh h
Pl r re.,;
en t ere w oOrt. It .
ere fewer IS as of
1995
24 Sl.ltes. This
Wars
of
he
third kind
typical year for the post-war period, there were thirty-one armed
conflicts in progress, only one of which
was
an interstate war. In 1993,
there were forty-seven
armed
conflicts, none of which
was
between
states (Wallensteen
and
Axell 1994). The trend of declining interstate
and
increasing internal
wars
is gaining
momentum;..
, f Three major conclusions emerge from these figures. First, classical
I
nterstate
wars have
declined dramatically compared to previous
historical periods, and constitute only
about
18 percent of all
wars
t since 1945. The main problem of war since 1945 has been within
and
lsbout
states,
not
between statesJ Second, the realist
and
neo-realist
prediction that
in any
system of anarchy, including its component
regions, wars
must
occur with some regularity is not borne out
by
the
data. Three regions have been free of interstate
war
for more
than
a
half-century
and two
regions - Europe
and
North America - have been
relatively free of
all
kinds of
war
during the same period.
Finally, perhaps the most remarkable
datum about
war
since 1945 is
that there has been no great
power
war. The problem of
war in
the
theoretical
and
practical literatures on international relations has been
characterized as essentially a great-power phenomenon; great powers
are
both
the sources of
war and
the authors of means of alleviating or
/ resolving the problem (cf. Waltz 1979; Bull1977: ch. 9) Although there
have been numerous American, Soviet, British, and French armed
interventions since 1945, almost all of them were occasioned
by
wars
and
rebellions within states in the Third World, in the communist bloc,
or among the post-communist states. The cast of war-launching
/ characters has fundamentally changed in the last one-half
of the
I
wentieth century.
t
is no longer the great powers, but the lsraels,
Egypts, Indias, Croatias,
and
Iraqs of the world. Interstate
war,
to the
l
xtent tha
.t
still exists, has become primarily a small-
or
medium-
we r
activtty. \
These trends
and
patterns cannot be explained
by
the
standard
theoretical devices of international politics, particularly
by
neo-realist
analysis. Rousseau
would
have been surprised that
in
some areas of
the
world
his hunters seem to collaborate regularly
and
none suffers
from a security dilemma in his backyard.
He
could not have predicted
the end of great-power war, nor the rise of wars within states.
f
such a large proportion
of
wars have domestic origins, then the
particularly the case
in
Africa. It is unlikely, however, that a calculation based on an
annual ratio of wars per state would produce
an
overall pattern significantly different
from the one in table 2.3.
25
/
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The state war and the state
of
war
place to pursue explanations .
between states
but
in the
ch
IS
not in the character
of
relations
. , aracter of the t t h
parhcularly interested in h
th
s a cs
t
emsclve >.
We are
ow
ey
were bo d h
m creating coherent civil
soci ti man
0\ \ . th
ey
have
fared
ments and those societies We es tolerable links between govem-
st t h e
move
mto th
f
a e morp ology (and sometirn e area o
state
creation
and
national politics. This is not t
es,
state pathology) rather
than
inter-
. o exclude
.secunty problems within
t a t ~ Th
mtemational influences on
But to pursue the argument
~ w i l l
be addressed in
chapter
7.
to the problem than mere wtie ave to establish that there is more
arms? Wh t
'd
a
on
of war Wh
a
1
eas, conditions and . Y
did
people take up
o rebellion and w a r ~ o 'h asptrattons drove them t th . t
f f i . \ l ug the Wa r 0 e p0tn
r- - ~ ~ ~ ISsues
being contested, the m .
ISted
in the
appendt
x had
f ~ ~ c a l community.fSince 1945 a)onty dealt with the
que
stion of
e ~ ~ o g n a l h l i b t :rabtion." These a r ~
a h i ~ c h h a v e
taken
the
form
of
w a ts roadly consd have th f
or less well-defined c t ered to be i l l e ~ t i e purpose o
ommuruty In
th o
mate rule
over
a more
predominantly rebellions of
ethn..
e nineteenth centu h
mun 'ti
tcaUy
and/ ry, t
ey
were
es agatnst Russian, Austrian or religiously d fin d
1945, .they have been wars
of
, and Ottoman im e . e e
c ~ m -
exdustvely fought . de-colonizati P
nal
rule. Smce
agamst Dutch F on pri b
Portuguese rule In h
1
rench,
Brir h
1
man y
ut
not
eac case, the pu
IS
, Spanish 5o d
satellite into a prototype o f a E
pose
was to tr ' vtet, an
+
In
addition to wars
f ,
ur?pean state." ansform a colony or
" . . . o national P-- J .
national untfication , The tueration" th
.
tr
purpos . , e
real
or
imagined that h b e IS
to re-unify
re are wars of
' as een torn som
_powers in the aftermath of wold apart or div'd e community,
gical struggles)
and
the Ind' r. wars.
Vietnam
ed by the great
thi , tan mcorpo . , "oreaV I .
s category. Internal faction and id
r ~ o n
of Goa . ; . I ~ so tdeolo-
for universal principles such d
e o l o g ~ c l
wars are
tnduded in
thn . as emocra , Osten '
b)
e .
tc
and other social cleavages within thcy or
SOcialism
St
Y fought
Fmally, there are the numerous s .e war zone 3 , often mask
nities in post-1945 states: communitieceshston wars f ~ u h
t ed es t at
ha
g t b
m egrat mto that larger communty th Ve
not
b y commu-
colonial rule. The Biafra armed se
1
.
at sought
indeen
successfully
cesston E
ePend
Lanka, the Sikhs in the Pun
1
ab th ' ntrea
th
ence from
I e several
le
' e Ta ls
movements
by
the Karen, Chin, Mon, and othngthy armed
m,
. in Sri
er
groups
. resistance
3 ~ ~
For example, the Sendero Lumino:.o arme d . . -uuar,
based largely
among
dis.lffectcd
groups
of n ~ f a n s n s m g p d u n n g the l9 U\
m
eru. Vl>
ai\Q 1
99:
was
26
Wars
of he
third kind
the Christian and animist population's struggle to tear away from
Muslim Sudan, Bougainville's secession fight against the central
authorities of Papua New Guinea, and an independence movement
within Senegal are just some of the
many
examples. Alt hough of later
f'origin, ( many of these conflicts are similar to wars of "national
liberation" because they
are
driven
by
a
community that
seeks to
create its own state. They involve resistance by various peoples
against domination, exclusion, persecution, or dispossession of lands
and resources, by the post-colonial state. We can term these state
nation wars. }
These kinds of war concern, ultimately, the question of statehood
and
the
nature of community within states. They are very different
from the kinds of issues that drove most wars
in
eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century Europe. While many of them
have
become inter
nationalized through foreign intervention, questions about statehood
and
state-nation relations, and
not
Cold
War
strategic competition,
centrally define them. Since these are
wars about
states rather than
about international politics,
and
since
most
have
been
fought in
what
used to be called the Third World, we might also expect that the
European-based norms
and
styles of warfare
would
not be duplicated.
This is indeed
the
case.
If
eighteenth-
and
nineteenth-century European
wars
were characterized by etiquette, rules, and formal sequences
(crisis, war declaration, military defeat, followed by a negotiated
peace), wars about states have
had
very different characteristics.
War
since 1945 has become de-institutionalized. We are debating, then,
not
only a very different geography and typology of
armed
conflict, but
also
very
different forms of war.
Before exploring the etiology
of
wars
about
states,
w
need to show
how wars
have changed
in
strategy, tactics,
and
rules.
War
s
of
the
"third
kind" (Rice 1988)
bear
little relationship to the Europe an wars
of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
or
to
the
total wars
of
the first
half
of
the twentieth century. The main criteria for distinguishing
forms of war are: (1) the purposes
of
war; (2) the role
of
civilians
during
wartime; and (3) the institutions
of
war. The
dur
a tion
and
phases of war,
as
the opening paragraphs
of
this chapter demonstrated,
are also fundamentally different. When two or more of these criteria
change fundamentally,
we
can say that there
has
been a transformation
of war. Typical wars of the late twentieth
and
early twenty-first
centuries
bear about
as
much
relationship to their eighteenth-century
predecessors
as
Louis XIV's wars related to the
marauding
mercenary
27
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~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~
'-
The
state
war and the state of war
J
-form the war from a local t . .
taking. Clearl the d en erpnse mto a vast transnational under-
war. y, uel
or
ballet analogy has
no
role in this kind
of
What else is so diffe t
fr .
urposes
ohrrmed rill.iren
om prev1ous eras? Mostly it is the
ith limit d -
~ t :
War as
an instrument of
a
f o r e i ~
po_ g
.- -.. . e goals lS not necess
I
h . -
ought o - f ~ ~ ~ r v ~ orestabl1Sh a an y t
s a ~ e p h e n o m e n a ~
as
w ~ r
entury, the colllillmuty h
commumty\Smce the early
mneteenth
Wars of
n a t i o n a l l i b e r a t i : ~ ~ u a ~ l ~
b ~ n
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The state war
and
the state ofwar
~ t e r e s t s , identities, psycholo
; ~ a _ l are involved. War in t i c ; : . ~ ~ r e ~ n d state C rt.>ation and sur-
as ~ e e n not mere ly a means f ' _wntes John Kttgan (1993: 56)
a vehtcle th h .
0
resolvmg int. . '
th roug which the embitter .l'rstate disputes but
also
e earth, and the hungry ed, the dispossesstd th ked
f
th . masses . , e na o
thetr anger, Jealousies
and
pent-u yeammg to breathe free, express
us tend to be nasty bruti h P urge to violence " p
1
,
s , and lo eop es wars
b
mce
~ e ~ e
wars
of a third
kin
ng
(Roberts 1993: 214
).
volve
CIVIlia
b d are
fundam II
fter killing
nsd
as . oth combatants and . e ~ t a y about people, and
, an matmin . VIchms thei r . I
figures are staggering: 1 0 ~ ~ O t h e . waves of r e f u g ~ s th mam egacy
Kashmir
about th
' Hindu s esca . .
ey
create. The
half million seekine same number of Oss t ~ m g the on-and-off war in
g safe h e tans flee G .
Azerbaijan; about th aven from the w b mg eorgia; one-
r
.. e same n b ar etween A d
aJma - an
area
th h
urn
er in
L b
.
rmema
an
ey ad
inh
b
1
ena 200 00
mvasion of 199S
600
000
a Ited for centu . ' ' 0 Ser bs left
Yugoslavia,
with'
another have l ~ f t the
B a l k a ~ e s
.-after
the
Croatian
hanging on in
the re
. three million displ d smce the
collapse
of
gton two
milli
ace fr h .
slaughter
in
Rwanda
' on refuge fr om t
etr
homes
but
Z
' mostly cam es
om th
19
atre
and
mill" ped
out
. e 94 genocidal
. , IOns
more from
th
m netghb
tion (Gelb 1994
6
) . e Various " ormg Tanzania and
L k continuin g Wars of
an
a,
Sudan and
Ta ki m
My ' - national
debilita-
'
JI stan
(B
-uuar
C b
I n ~ e ~ a t i o n a l Red Cross
fi
res roWn 1993: 17), am odia, Iraq, Sri
mtlhon displaced
p e r s o ~
f , there Were 23 1994,
according
to
uprooted from their hom , or a total of aim on refugees and 26
Qu
'b, . es as a result ost 49 . .
. e ecms
des
Relations Intem ati of Wars of th .
mtlhon
people
rwar s
of
the third
kind h onales
1995:
1 A e third
kind (Centre
syst em since 1945 Th . ave predomm ' yoob 1995 174)
B .
ey
persist and . ated
in
th
e c a ~ s e m many regions of the Will continue . t e international
relation of the state to t ts World the issue mf o the future Why?
I constitu o st . .
peop es has
not been settled w"th d ent nations atehood
and
the
states
-not
in the military I e-colonizaij communities d
. sense, but on. In
. ,
an
~ r e and will be the locales of w a ~ terms of legi . Particular,
weak
m ~ g h t be settled once and for all -
Jo e x t e n ~ c y and
efficacy
w ~ l l often be by
armed combat
To a
Ubtous
pro . those
issues
will
be
the case it is n . underst and hpoSltion
at
b .
' ecessary to exa .
w
y this
est
- 1t
~ o d e m
states. The sources of
present
Il'tine the b has been and
different European
and
Th d W and futur Irth and
natu
format ion Ir orld experi e
War
lie .
re
of
. ences of
statem
~ h e very
btrth and
4
----1
3 The formation
o
states before 945
Wars
of the
third kind
have
numerous unique qualities. Their histories
vary, as do their outcomes- defeat of
insurgents
in Malaya, victory in
Algeria,
stalemate in Kashmir
and
the
Sudan -
but they have
a
common source: the definition of a legitimate political
community
and
the search
for statehoodf'D:.e
mystiques of statehood
and
nationality
drive today's wars,
just as balances
of power,
successions, searches for
hegemony, and
rivalry
over
colonies
drove most
eighteenth-century
wars.(fhe end
of the Cold War has not
brought
a new world
order
because that rivalry
was largely
irrelevant
to a much
more funda
mental historical process, the definition
and
determination of legiti
mate community
from imperial to
other forms, and the
transformation
'
of
a
heterogeneity
of political
organizations into
a single format, the
, lOdem
s t a ~ o understand
why we will
continue to have
wars
of the
third kind in future years,
we
need to have a better understanding,
first, of the origins, the drive for, and forms of political community and
statehood and, second, of the difficulties facing many new states.
The
process
of state-formation in Europe has become an area of
increased
research by historical sociologists
and
political scientists
during the past several decades. We now have a reasonably rich
literature
that generalizes across many eras and locales and
develops
a
variety
of perspectives
(cf.
Tilly 1990; Hal11986; Rasler and
Thompson
1989; Ruggie 1993). While
narratives
and
explanations
by no
means
agree on details
and
emphases, there is a
general
consensus that the
development of the state format of political organization
was
a lengthy
process, that it took many forms and trajectories, and that political
elites between the fifteenth and twentieth
centuries
did not have an
overall
plan or
model they were trying
to create (cf.
Smith
1986: 239;
Tilly 1990: 194).
4
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The
state,
war, and
the state o
war
~ . t h e year 1200,
Europe
was carved .
pohtical forms, a heterogeneous II . up mto a hotch-potch of
"ti
1 co echon f t b
ct es, e c ~ estastical proto-states, duk o
n
utary empires,
free
Arab
tribal organizations m edoms, hereditary kinidoms
and
(
19904 part s of S fA
0
'
5), a mmtmum of 80 distin t . . pam. c c o r d i n ~ to
Tilly
500 d d" c pohtical t
'
epen mg
upon how one defi um s and a maximum
of
th
nes a p
rr
e continental
landscape
On
av
0
1
leal
organization
dottedb 1 erage
1 ,
a
out
6,000
square
kilomete rs th . , a ru er controlled an area of
9 ~ 0 Europe
had been
e d u ~ e d ~ o s : of c o n t e ~ p o r a r y El Salvador.
?rms. the modem territ orial natio eteen umts
that
took only two
tional e T n-state a d h
mpue.. wo decades later, th n . t e dynastic multina-
~ ~ : : ; ; s e d , l e a ~ m g only the single form:t multinational empires had
S .
and
Stalm resurrected a new form f of the territorial state until
f ovtet Union. Europe
moved
from extr o multinational
empire
in the
h ~ : ~ ~ ~ n : ~ ; o ~ : ~ ~
about
five c e n : ~ ~ ~ e ~ o g e n e i t y
of
political
Andorra, Liechtenstein
u::he
form of n o n ~ e r e ~ w r e ~ ~ n t s
of
that
cies
and
destinati f ' d ~ o n a c o , but they entities
such as
Authors
do
otns
or tounsts
rather than madre
pnmarily
dependen-
no
agree
on
all
th
0
ern so
development of them d e conditions th vereign state s.
o em state
fo at
ti
1
the relative continental . I t' rmat, hut am s mu
ated
the
1so a ton fro . ong th .
world (although the Ottoman E . m Imperial
0
em we can hst
large parts of east
and
central ~ I r e ~ o s t
s u ~ e e : e r
c ~ n t e r s of the
common Christian culture, and ~ p e
m
the sevent ed m embracing
replacement of elite Latin b e development eenth century) , a
44-7) Y mass vern of p
The devel opment of citi acuiars cf nnt and the
(Tilly 1990),
and
the c o n c e n t r a t i ~ s ~ a t fostered c a ~ : O d e r s o n 1983a:
as the lie de France, Castile, and ; ol an ethnic elite 1 al ~ c c u m u l a t i o n
were also critical sources of the t e ;7 (Smith 9 8 ~ o ; e
m
areas such
. The previous chapter emphasized t ~ : t state. . 41; Smith 1989)
m the formation of states As
Anth
G war
also
Pla
ony
iddens
Yed
a m .
The European state syste (1987: 112) aJor role
ment in which the
absolu:t:: ' t
not
simply the
suggests,
~ h e condition, and in s u b s t a n t i a ~
a;;
n a t i o n s t a t e ~ O l i t i c a l environ-
evelopment. It
was war, and pre ara p'ee the v eveloped.
It
was
~ o s t potent energizing stimulus for ;:ons for
wa SOUrce
of
that
hbve lres?urces
and fiscal reorganizatione
h c o n c e n t r t i ~ t Provided
the
a so uhsm.
at chara
of
ad
. .
tninistra-
Indeed, one could make the case
that
. . . (cf.fiowar:e rise of
were
born through
war and tin'
a Significant llla
1976: 55)
con ued to centr '''- )Otity of
""Ze aft states
4 anned
The formation of states before
1945
~ - c o m b a t { I n
France, England, Spain, Russia, Germany, and elsewhere,
civil wars
between
centralizing monarchs
and
local and regional
power
centers characterized historical development for
c e n t u r i ~
French kings subjugated local authorities through a variety of means,
both persuasive (bribery of various forms)
and
coercive. Occasionally,
resistance took the form of civil war (the Fronde of the mid-seventeenth
century). Peter
the
Great
subdued the
boyars
through
military cam
paigns and mass executions. British kings confronted
armed
nobles
through coercion, bribery, and various forms of
armed
pacification.
Under
the influence of Richelieu and Colbert, French kings system
atically destroyed the fortifications of cities
and
nobles. They were
replaced by fortifications
on
the periphery of France. By the early
1700s, the French population had been effectively disarmed (Tilly 1990:
69) and thus incapable of serious resistance against expanding central
authority.
Fixed and delimited territorial boundaries are a relatively recent
invention.
Throughout most
of human history,
the
territorial
base
of
political jurisdictions
was at
best fluid. There were vast grey areas of
overlapping
jurisdictions
(and thus
frequent quarrels) of uncertain
domains. Patrimonial realms were not the same as the carefully
delimited
and defended
frontiers of today. Until
the
late seventeenth
century, Europe included vast open spaces where goods, people, and
ideas could migrate
without
reference to citizenship
or
origins. State
core areas were separated from the peripheries by wastelands, forests,
or
farm areas
that
were difficult to traverse. Even as late as
the
1790s it
took eleven
days to
travel by coach from Paris to Marseilles (Braudel
1990); a trip from Moscow to St. Petersburg
was
a major undertaking.
But the peripheries
were
also the routes for foreign invasions. To
define a realm
more precisely- and
thj;refore to be able to
defend
it
..----
better - lineal frontiers were drawn.( The move from frontiers to
borders, from amorphous zones to mutually agreed upon demarcated
lines, did
not
occur until well into t he eighteenth centux:rj The first
surveyed lineal boundary in Europe was recorded in a treaty in 1718
(Giddens 1987: 90). As the central authorities
began
to organize their
realms vertically by undermining or destroying local power centers,
they also began to organize their horizontal space. By the early nine
teenth century,
most
of the states of Western Europe
were
well defined
in terms of sovereign jurisdiction. The actual delimitation of frontiers
was
as
often
as not
the result of
wars
and their resulting peace treaties.
A province, duchy, or region was dismembered from one state and
43
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The state war
and
the
state ofwar
annexed to its neighbor Th
th rough th
t
e ~ ,
uncertainly defined "realm , e
I
tt>tnth to nuwtt>tnth centuries,
onal states. s becamt spt'(ilic,JIIv loc.1ted terri-
State-making was .
some h essentially an int 1
ll
monarc s were to learn) B
ema
undert.Jking
(or
ordeal,
as
a
owed
central th . . ut to the e t h .
t
.
au
onties to t x
ent
t .1t 1t succeeded it
axahon of va . ex ract ever . - . '
. .
nous
forms. Th
-mutasmg
nvenuts through
centraliZation
pr
ese
revenues
tions thr ou ocess by expandin a . . Wl're used to further the
sove . , ghout the realm. Th g dmtnlstratiw .md judicial
institu-
reign s armed mi h ey Were al
domestic
g
t. State-makin
so
used to increase the
concern Rous g thus w
captures the t. _seau's con_cept f th , as not a matter solely
of
exernal
c .. o e sec .t d"l , .
~ o v e r e i g n s disami.e(f ~ I \ S e q _ u ~ C : e s of the
un
Y
. ~ e m m a
mcely
mcreased
th
thetr populati
state-makmg
process: as
etr capacity f ons
and 1
This
was
perceived b tnaintainin au
s s e ~
power centers, they
copied the centraliz Y neighbors as a g t t ~ o n t y within the
realm.
critically impor t t mg practices of t h p ~ enhal threat.
They
therefore
an to th eir com .
John Hall (1986:
1
64-S e state-makin peht ors . Emulatio
was
barbarians on the peri ~ ~ p u t
it:
e;/rocess
cf.
Waltz
1979). As
to surv ive. Peter t h pGenes; states Inustires
don't
need
to copy
the
e reat's . copy h
one of the more d .
SOJOUrn .
eac
other
if they want
h" b . . ramatic t l
zncognuo
. A
s
1
P
uddmg crafts in
0
d a es of e"'ul . m msterdam is Just
b R . , r er to bUi} ... ation H
ay . ussta s enemies in the no d a naval fl e studied Dutch
Emptre. His model for th
Rrth
and south Seet capable
of
holding at
count erpart, Frederick als e ussian state ' Weden and
the
Ottoman
model the disparate a ~ d n o ~ - ~ : w .France a s w ~ s France.
His
Prussian
~ h a n
a century later, Japan senttiguous rea1mse ~ t a t e upon
which
to
.urope to copy state instituti numerous " o Brandenburg. More
tions of p ons and research
. russia Germany. Fo
mPartiCU}
commissions"
to
ef(ective centralization th . r reasons ar the milita . . -
. ' e
s t a t e m a ~ ~- ~ . . .
nl"estige ry mstitu
CIOn. d
c
d
Wh
- . . elense
an
at 1s
'
ti I ~ u s s _ m g from this narrativ ? l..- -llta sense a chain
I
ca
soenhsts who
ha e. vlost
his
~ : ~ ~ : : : / n a t e r i a _ l i s ~ s ~ = y
s : : ~ ~ ~ s ~ e s t a t ~ ~ s ~ o l o g i s t s
and
IOns, pnnting, vernacular Ian e caPital an:tion process in
1
gtlages
coerci
In some respects, howev . and the on, war,
T er, empues did
slow d
ttary tactics
and
equipment. Caval
c o p ~ S 1Tte
Of
evelop-
arlter groups
who
at th . ry
and
stirrups
their
b
b b e time were c . w r . al'ba .
ar arian. I
am
grateful to the an onstdered b
liitrOd.uc
nan adversaries'
pomt. ony mou s externaly the Jn,.; ed by
M:o
I
e x a _ ~ r civi iz
. ngo s and
Of
this ations to be
44
study for the
The formation
of
states before 1945
ment
of administrative capacities. They miss the ideas
and myths that
sustain
the legitimacy of political orders
and
the communities on
which those orders are
a s e ~ i s t o r i c a l l y
leaders of political commu
nities have based their right to rule on combinations of religion (as for
example in the doctrine of divine right of monarchy), virtue, inheri
tance, special achievement (particularly heroism in war), race, lineage,
and
as in
the
myths
to justify European
and
American imperialism, the
paternalistic ideas
inherent in
"civilizing missions." Until
the
late
eighteenth century,
European
princes
based
their rule
on
a combina
tion of these, collectively
known
as the dynastic principle under which
hereditary rulers passed on their possessions to offspring with the
blessing of the Holy See and other monarchs. The communities over
which they ruled were defined as groups of subjects often sub
identified
by
creed. But
under
the influence of the Enlightenment,
questions began to be raised about both the sources of political
authority within the state and the nature of the community over which
state rule is exercised. For the next century, two new ideas among a
number of
older
ones became
paramount
in defining
the
political
community
and
the right
to
rule over it: citizenship
and
nationality.
2
The community of citizens
We do not need to elaborate on the change of legitimizing
myths
or
principles underlying democratic claims of a right to rule. t is well
known: the American and French revolutions substituted the concept
of
popular
sovereignty for divine right
and
its attending beliefs and
doctrines of succession and royal mystique based
on warrior
and other
achievements. What is less understood in terms of its importance for
international politics
and war,
is the change in definitions of political
community, that is, the specification of who, precisely, is to be counted
as a member of the political order and on what basis.
2
Anthony Smith makes a similar distinction: Western civic
and
Eastern (German)
cultural-national bases of authority. The civic concept contains four elements:
(1)
a
territorial referent
( homeland )
as repository of historic memories and associations;
(2)
the idea of
patria
a
community
of laws
and
institutions;
(3)
a sense of legal equality;
and (4) a measure of common values and traditions. The Eastern concept is based on
birth regardless of political context. To define oneself, there is a
need
for a pre
historical reality" - a reference to a people that existed before the state, as well as
culture and ethnicity (Smith 1991: 9ff). I question whether items 1 and 4 are critical in
immigrant societies such as Canada and Australia. Legal equality,
in
my view, is the
crucial
component
of the civic basis of political community.
45
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The state war and the state of
war
{After the
Thirty
Years W .
tions, the specificati
f
ar until the American and French
revolu
d
. . . on o communt d. :i
efinition of community h
1
Y tc
. not pns ent a problem. he
on the basis of th li . ad been settled
m
the Trl'aties of Westphalia
e
re
gton of the
w1th the prince's sub pnnce. The
community
was identical
co )eets, whose prim i
mmuruty was formed h . ary tc entity was faith.
he
- - m ~ r r i a g e s .
This
was
a s s u ~ s t ~ n c a l l y
through wars,
successions,
and
vam among the writin e rather than debated. lOne searches n
ti
f gs of Hobbe d L
on o community
C .
s an ocke for
some
other
specifica-
tu . unously alth h .
na re was universal im
1
. oug thetr
metaphor
of the state of
c?ntest the actual l m ts fp Y ~ g world government, they did not
eighteenth
0
terntorial d.
. . . -century Europ Wh JUns tchon
of
seventeenth- and
md
diV
1
duals in order to se; ether the social contract was between
uals and th up a sovere
L .
d
e state-Leviathan (H tgn ocke), or between indtvt
rea ers would obbe ) th
C
easily identify th . s ' e
authors
assumed thetr
ommonwealth e affiliati f
England of th to use Hobbes's te ons
0
these individuals.
The
In e mid-seventeenth
rrn
was
understood
to mean the
contract theo th century.
plied b th
ry
e state
is
th .
There s n :
= h e r s
making up h ~ e c a t i o n of
n d i v i d u a l
will, multi-
based on inte enl
ce
to groups a
~ m m u m t y
or commonwealth.
rest, angu , ssociatio . .
executive co . age, culture ns, or other collechvities
rnmittee f , or othe b
matter of will d
0
the people
' t .
r ~ t t n utes. The state
is
the
rna e a '
1
Is
their
responsible for th SOCial contract . crea tion . If all have as a
contract, while
; : u l ~ s . There
c ~ o ~ f o l l ~ w ~ ~ h a t all are
equally
special privileges fail to
do so
a be md1v1duals who make a
reexe .
The mdiVidualisrn f mpt from It, or
who have
citizen.
The c o m m u n i ~ contract theory tr
territorially bounded ' then,
is
defined . anslates to the concept of the
h realm
On 10
term . .
ng ts and responsibil'ti . ce attain d s of c1t1zenship within a
Th
d
1
es for
Ind' . e '
Citiz
h'
1
e I ea of the citiz
IVIdual
ens Ip
provides
equa
I
. en wasd s.
revo uhon.
It
is often f eveloped .
Declaration of the R i g h ~ : g o t t e n that the
~ : r
to and during the French
subsequent years the r e v ~ { u ~ n
and
the C ~ ~ a l Assembly drafted the
b a s ~ on wealth ( active a n ~ ~ ~ e s e s t a b l ~ ~ ~ e n (1789). Although in
dehberate ly excluded servant Passive . . d Various qualifications
to be equal. But who were th s
:nd
o m e : ~ e n s
and
education and
assume? rather than argued i ; , ~ ~ Was
n ~ : :
theory all citizens 'were
of the kmg.
Citizens
matter of d b
R
. Were
t e ate.
It
was
estdence in the French n
ti
0
be the
fo
b ts
a
on
(c
rmer su ec
omxn.UOi
6 ly), after th
e age of twenty
The
formation
of states before 945
one, automatically warranted citizenship. Birth
and
residence in the
nation, rather than privilege mediated through the monarch, became
the basis of equal rights (Fitzsimmons 1993: 31). The Revolution
destroyed or abolished all subnational jurisdictional boundaries and
corporate distinctions. This left the citizen face to face
with
the state;
there were no more buffers (Brubaker 1992: 45). But since, theoretically,
it
was
citizens
who now made
the laws, buffers
were no
longer
necessary. Most significant, whatever the debates and changes in the
formal qualifications of citizenship, they were
not
based
on
some
concept of nationality, religion, language (very few Frenchmen
could
read
the Declaration of
the
Rights of Man
and the
Citizen in French),
or ethnicity. Indeed, in the first version of the citizenship concept,
foreigners residing in France were included. The community, then, is
defined
in
terms of citizenship achieved by all people residing within
the traditional territorial unit called France, the United States,
or
whatever.
Humans
form all sorts of associations for different purposes,
be
they economic, religious, familial, political, athletic, or others. In the
concept of the citizen, rights
and
responsibilities transcend such
associations. Individuals cannot be put into permanent categories; to
do
so implies either special privileges
or
special exclusions. Rights,
then, are enjoyed equally regardless of a citizen's location, ethnic
origins, language, beliefs, sentiments, or affiliations. A naturalized
Canadian of Chinese birth has exactly the same rights and duties as a
native-born Canadian. The Canadian-Chinese may be marginalized
economically, or discriminated against (illegally) in various associa
tions, but he
or
she stands in exactly the same relationship to the state
as any other Canadian. It is this legal equality that is supposed to
provide the glue for society. Questions of identity, personal associa
tion, language, religious practices,
and other
issues are left
to
the
individual to organize or experience privately. They are beyond the
purview of the state.
But
not
all individuals find citizenship
an
adequate basis for commu-
nity. It is individualistic, abstract, and ultimately taken for granted. A
second definition of the political community seeks to provide the
emotional and sentimental glue that citizenship and popular sover-
eignty lack.
47
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The state war
and
the state of war
he
onunu
y
The literatur
m
o
nationals
eon nati I
going.3 Defini . ona
Ism
is vast th, . .
1
tions abound ' l dlb.1tes .nt tunous and
on
face t?
wade into the thi:k
ats Oudo
moral
judgments.
This
is not
the
ormation proc . e r cone
P
. ess
m
Europe d . lm
1s
to
compare
the
state-
rocess m oth
unng
the .
1
h .
th
. er parts of th
pas alt-mdlennium
with
the
ese differ e World
1 .
Mo t ences relate to the in
"d
' most y smcc I Y-t5, and to see how
s contemporary Cl ence of war.
members of the analysts agree th . . .
expressed
fi
t b state, nationalism . at as a
scnllment
bmdmg
did not beer s y political elites m this a recent phenomenon.
t
was
orne a
gr
e era of th F
century ass-roots se ti e rcnch revolution but
n ment u n .
Prior to this time n
1
well mto the nineteenth
England, Spain ~ : e a s a n t s of eighteent
themselves P ~ a r i l other European d h - c e ~ t u r y France, Germany,
between the
pe
Y
as
Christians
If
ynashc territories identified
. . asant and there
pnmanly
in the fo the king
was
any political nexus
a subject of
this
m of tax paYment'
Thqueen,
Prince, or
duke,
it was
or that . ere w
e ~ p e r o r but
peasants and Pnnce or local as a vague
sense
of being
bemg a member of a , . many toWns magnate,
or of
a distant
there were any secular
~ t i o n : _in
the mc :ople
were not
conscious of
local. Consider the F chdentities that h ern sense (Pfaff 1993 61)
If
F ren c ad r
_ranee in 1664 was d i v ~ s e . po ltical impact, they were
ms1de the area kno lded by
in
welded wn as the ternal cu t
mto a customs . mq
gr
08
s oms barriers except
P?rtion of northern
F r a n ~ o ~
by Colbe;es fennes which
had
been
Plcardy. French a u t h o r i t i ~
ut
: x c l u d e d B ~ a t
area covered a good
gund
y and cons1d nttany
"f . VIrtually the
wh
1
erect
t h ~ and
large parts of
ore1gn Th o e f ~ . . . are
(
ey were legally France as, along with Bur-
except Burgundy) b Part
of
th south fBraude) 19
88
.
68
'
ut
in fact
fore
e heredita
0
t ~ e
Loire,
as
France: .
).
Braude) (1988: 7 ~ r collntriesy terntorial realm
Wfit.,., (see
the map
in
of
~ o r
~ h a l l we
find
unity
whe
eighteenth-century
f i n ~ _It- at the level of politic:e
We
Il\i.ght
pohhcal center ever succeed _
PDwer.
N
ha"e
expec
.
ed Ill
Unf>os
0
Btructu
. ted m theory to
A
useful
summary and analysis is
in 01 W lll.g Unity
; ~ g force
from
the
natJonahsm 1s h
1
e aev q'
act
. , never e
ess,
based h . er et al lVersity h" h
expenences. English-language stud
eavdy
on the E
1993:
ch
w C
where
are
rare cf. Norbu 1992) Jes of the t i o i ~ Ur >Jlean . 2). lhe literatu
. ~ ~ f ~ reoo
0
l"llls of Orth American
48
llation 1
a Ism else-
The formation
of states before
1945
seemed
to
have ineradicable vitality. No sooner was it disciplined
than it broke out again: neither political, social nor cultural order ever
contrived
to foist
more than surface unity on the whole.
He continues when describing the centuries-long efforts of French
royalty to bring unity to the realm:
But what difficulties, obstacles, forces of inertia and counterpowers it
had
to
face
From its long past, it inherited a farrago
of
disorgani
zation, confusion, downright impotence. French society was by no
means under the
firm
hand of the state, far from it There could be
no such thing as an even halfway unified society in France until the
French nation had been forged - something that
is
still so recent that
we almost think of it as accomplished within living memory.
Until the late nineteenth century, France
was
a geographical expression
and
a territorial state, but
not
a nation. That key indicator of a nation
a
common language
-
was
a creation of
the
French state
between
1536
when
Francis I declared it
the
official language, and today. In between,
France was a congeries of local dialects
and
patois. In a
published
account in 1707, an English traveler claimed that "it is no less difficult
for a peasant from these parts [southern France] to make a speech in
French
than
it would be for a newly-landed Frenchman
to speak
English
in England"
(quoted in Braudel 1988: 86). At the time of the
French Revolution - often claimed to
be
the first great manifestation of
French
nationalism-
one-half of France's citizens
spoke no
French, and
only
about
12
percent spoke
it
properly (Hobsbawm
1990: 60).
According to Braudel, in
the
eighteenth
century
the dialects
spoken by
the French
peasantry
generally extended no
more than
7 kilometers.
Even as late as
the
mid-ninetee nth century, few
peasants
in
Languedoc
could speak
French. Eugene Weber's (1976)
study, Peasants
into
Frenchmen: The
Modernization of Rural
France
1870-1940,
based
on
empirical materials, argues
that most rural
and
small-town dwellers
in
France
did not
conceive of themselves as
members
of
the
French nation
until the late nineteenth century.
What Weber has chronicled for France is supported for other
European groups
by Walker Connor (1990: 92-103). In his
study based
on
American
immigrants'
self-identification
between
1840 and 1950,
some startling results appear. Luxemburgers, for example, identified
themselves as Germans throughout the nineteenth century. Ukrainians
had
no
idea what Ukraine meant; they identified themselves as Rusyns
and Ruthenians, and
not
infrequently
as
Russians and Poles. Mace
donia
was
non-existent as a social
and
sentimental community. Im-
49
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The
state war and the
state
of
war
migrants from the Austr
terms of o-Hungari,ln
f
regtons, valleys and
1
t:mp.lrl' ldtnlllll'd themselves in
o Alba c '
owns
rua, onnor 1990 9
6
)
1
.
' not
sonw
"n,ttinn.tlitv."
Writing
g
overnme t 1 c
a1ms it
.
n c atms to
th
. Is not t'\"tn \ t t. d te
e contrary: . t a n.t wn, esp1
[l)t is not at all cert .
welded
the high am that a single Alb .
cultu . and Gegs a d .1111.111 l n n - . . . t o u ~ r w s s has truly
re,
mduding
. n
more
south
1 .
1
.
consequenti
1
SOcial organizati
1
r \ o-.b. Mfert'nces m
two peopl a are readily percept"blon,
1rt
pronounnd Far more
es, a
fonnd
1
e phvs1
1 J f
commo I able b c.t u1 ltnrKt>s behn>en the
n ancestry th arner to th, . .
at the govern t
me
uk.1t1on of the
myth
of
Th
" ment so
ls s
1
J
1
e nation as a uous y cult1vates.
vintage
in
most
parts
:ass-roots
phenomen .
only if
we
look at li Europe. Its
ped
o ~ , then, 1s of very recent
. e tes . tgree 1s
r ~ : _ eator of F
zec JOurnalists. Politi
1
kings
Se
rench nationalism as
symbols, invented doctrine
c(a
leaders
and
rbian
prime
ministers,
drew
in s
self-d.,..-
movem
grass-roots support ~ ~ t m i n a t i ents manipulated
ranged
from develop ing con ers to sustain on, national
honor)
and
(d.
~ a m i l l e r i
and
Falk 1992: ~ ~ t s the
\Vel
their objectives,
~ h i c h
~ m p i _ r e . For the inclusiveness of. th
Smarck setare
state to
making
war
mptre, he substi tuted the exclus e
lOOse, dec
out to create a German
t h ~ : i ' ~
a German race P f a ~ ~ ; ~ ~ ~ of t h e ~ : a l i z e d
Holy
Roman
h
e.
east of the sources of m .
46).
rman state
based
on
was
c romcled
by
many durin ass Oatio .
Ieonie wars
Th
g the Frennl..
llalism
w
. ese wars were ins -..
1
rev l . as War itself t
dynastic regime's
deliberates ~ m e n t a l
. o Utionary d N .
The
nation in
arms
eparation of the n breakin an apo-
without popular
sen un
onctelpt
could not l . . ~ t a t e
al'll\y
g down the
.
en
a
and
.
'l
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The
state
war and th
est te of rmr
the
result
of
wh t I ha many millums of
I
I
a ve said [T] J't t'P
1
''
tlwtr hllflt.'S raised by
accord . me llllr 1
1
..
ance
w
1
th th . tmt r.u.-... .1 'lllt >ltlln [m Pans] m
that G esc pnnoplt l 1
.
reat
Britain F
s
Hll .un m d
wtth
the
statement
oblig
ti or rann h .
h
a .on. I tell them b . .1\
1
'
1'11lt'rtd 1111
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The
state
,
War
and
r '\ . .
r ~ on. Colonial and So t d . . t .
had been
reasonabl h .... ~ conunum .
Vie
a mmls
ra
from South As y omogeneous ~ e s _ w h e r e formerly there
1a were trans uu\lnities
H'
d
ibbean
15
lands Chin ported to Gu m
us
and Muslims
ese Ja Yana
p--
laborers migrated . ' panese, Korean S '
1
)
1
, and several Car-
m waves t th , amo .
Hawaii. Russians
were tr
0
e Amen . an, and Okinawan
lies, and restless (anti-c
a n s p ~ r t e d
to the Cencantr liDperial domain in
ommUTIISt} " al A
were liquid ated forceful . natives" th Stan Sov1et repub-
, y asslffiilated ere and .
(d.
Lemaitre
et
al. 199
2
:
123
) . , or earned m the Caucasus
areas where they had not x i s t ~ ~ ~ t i e s
Were ff
o distant locales
The
main
point is
clear th pl
rev1ously.
us often
created
in
1
. . ecooni 1
re ationship to any pre-coloru 1 a_ territorial .
1
. . a efuni
l lnit
b
1
.
re 1g10us communities or polt'ti
1
c, reJip-;
0
ore 1ttle or no
ca syst
o
us pol' .
There were, of course, excepti ems. , 1tical, social, or
mated historical, precolonial p o ~ : Some coloni
Rwanda, Morocco Egypt T u n ; ~ cal entities z es actually approxi-
lnd ' m.:o1a, a few f tmbab
ochma, Burma, plus most small . l o the form We, Swaziland,
over and their historic territorial W: and Colonies er Soviet republics ,
known, which was not always the ca:) the e x t : ~ r e simply taken
ere
acceptedthat they were
6 as the colonial
The creation of states
since 1945
boundaries. Somethi ng akin to states, defined by Harik (1990: 5) as an
established authority which enjoys jurisdiction over a core territory
and people
for
an extended period
of time," existed
in most of the
Arab
world
prior
to the
nineteenth century. Oman,
he
argues (p. 17},
goes
back
as a
separate
political
unit
to
the eighth
century. The
Asante
in Africa, if
not
yet a state
when
colonized, constituted a national-type
society
on
its way
toward
becoming a nation-state. I t possessed
known boundaries,
a central
government with
police
and
army,
consequent law and order,
an
accepted national language; and beyond
these
it even
possessed,
by
the 1880s, an
emergent middle
class capable
of envisaging the role of capitalist entrepreneur (Davi dson 1992: 75).
Whatever the ultimate hopes of Asante development, they quickly
came
to
an
end
with colonial rule.
What of precolonial political organizations? The same generalization
applies:
in
a majority of the colonies there was no political organization
that approximated the territorial jurisdictions established in London,
Paris, St. Petersburg,
and
elsewhere
in
Europe. The colonial authorities
defeated, bribed, coerced, and sometimes exterminated an incredible
variety of political leaderships, ranging from clan elders, tribal chiefs,
hereditary
kingdoms,
and
local sultanates
to
maharajas
and
imam-
chiefs.
Colonial authorities
used
these local political forms and forces
as
the
primary medium for indirect rule. They supported
and worked
through chiefs, caudillos,
and
various types of strongmen who
made
rules and allocated values
among
a variety of ethnic, clan, class, and
functional or
communal
social units (d. Migdal1988: 31-9). The British
in India created political, legal, and social institutions for different
religious, ethnic,
and caste communities when these demonstrated
loyalty to colonial rule. They also recruited their
armed
forces from
martial
races,"
thus
separating
them
from the rest of society (Nafziger
and
Richter 1976: 93). All of this helped sustain colonial rule,
but
it also
hindered the development of a sense of identity
that
corresponded
with colonial territorial divisions. While in some colonies (e.g., India) a
strong sense of nationalism had already developed in the early
twentieth century, in many of the others colonial rule respected some
degree of local autonomy and sustained traditional political structures
specifically so
that
they
would
form poles of attraction and identity in
competition
with the
early "nationalists" who
were beginning
to
think
in European terms (cf. Mazrui 1983: 42)
Much has been written
on
the economic and social depredations and
65
I,
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The state w
'
r, and
the state o
~ w r
. *
r UY
ational iberati
-1 (
I
~ P o l i t i c a l
legitim
on
l, rule " over 'dacy. refers to the p . . I
the p t 1 an
1
entified politic
I nnup
e(s)
on whteh
the "right to
1 os - 945 stat th a communtt . ,
: alism In es,
e Princi
1 ) ts l'st,Jbhslwd. In many
of
/ , most colo
1
P e was neg
l t i .
. 1 L . .
-"" republics .
rua
territori
\l.
lllt'r,l tontromcoloru
' national lib es, as well a . .
and/or
d'fc eration was
s
m
sonw
former
Soviet
1
1erent rei' . more a
mo
,
exploitation, and ~ g t o n s against W \ enwnt_
of
colored peoples
Nationall iberati raosm, than a p estem or S..wil' domination,
different from ~ n . s t r u g g i e s in the rogram to
build
something nE J
and North
Am .
etr nineteenth-c post -
194
5 world were significantly
of national lib
n c ~
counterparts ~ r y European,
South American,
political rule eration. It
Was
e American
revolution
was a war
B 1 . ' namely a a
war t . .
a tic and East E republican d
0
tnshtute
a
new
kind of
just "national" ~ o p e a n countries sh emocracy . In 1919, many
of
the
the ch erenden ared that . .
/ 1 )
ance to create ce
from.
th .
VISion. They
sought not
) British, or American parliamentary d etr respective
empires
but
also
( \ Europe was for s o m e t h i n m . ? < I e l s ( N a t i o n a ~ ~ o c b racies
based
on the French,
well as aga
g -
p o ~ e r t i o n
h d, mst someth1n
~ u l a r
so
: In
t e Americas
an
Most n ti ...1.gJ
- - . _
Veretgnty - -
a onal I iberati - - .
and
democracy -
as
emphasized the on
m.ovem.
than the . . oppressions
an
ents
in
the .
F pnnctples on
whf..;t:.
d depfed . colomes,
in
contrast,
or
them lib .
u 1
the-- ations f
,toward ' eration was fre J ? O S . t ~ o t o t \ i . o colonialism
rat ler
. . a greater g()a[
Iftn-
. < l _ _ : _ ~ t l y a n -at state should
be
based.
soCiahsm (or . ere
was---
.. _
in
economic tr pnvate markets
i l \ 4 . ~ l 0 a d e ~
. . ttself. not a
means
ansform ti me nn L messa
multitude
f a on, not dem. : S o . . \ i e t . r ge, tt
was
usually
leaders e ~ ~ h s p ~ e c h e s and p o l i t i ( : ~ < 1 ' or
P o p ~ p u b l i c s )
and instant
meaning
an adstzed freedom andrnobiliiiitio ar sovereignty.
The
en
to forei d new n effort b 1b
paper by Uri T gn Offiinati ~ o n . s y 1 eratiOn
a . tmango f on
l
onu.c
. .
emphasized
th t " o the p : o take . opportunities,
1
a
our
strug 1 restden .
JUst
on
1
c ass one it is g e today is
tiai
C e examp
e,
a
d o m i n a t i ~ n
P o ~ struggle of the maS:
l i r n . a ~ u n c i } of
FRELIMO
these m a s s ~ s
( q u ~ ~ = ~ e
~ o ~ ~ i a l i s m , for
fr
of Peopre
a:
~ e o l o g i c a l or
statement
could
have
bee aganc;a and
~ O m
and .
gamst
foreign
national liberation m n made by an allerstei:n ~ d e p e n d e n c e of
more profound rheton?vements. In India Ylof do:1.,.._982: 125). This
c emerged ' a n ~ - -:-'
18
of 1
of
democracy
and
the
1
emphasizi:n
~ a eaders
of
tively
uncommon
c o m p s e c ~ ar state, but
s u ~
the
cti; d
elsewhere,
are to the emphasis o eltJ>ositicat importance
1\''l;\.._ ons
72 ""' l'aij Were rela-
on:
The creation of states since 1945
The leaders of the liberation movements were themselves rarely
elected,
and
once independence
was
achieved they seldom subjected
themselves to popular validation. Frelimo and
dozens of
its
counter
parts became the
post-colonial
governments,
the
sole
legitimate
representatives" of the Mozambique and other national
selves,
by
virtue of waging an efficient mili tary
and
political campaign on behalf
of the colonial
people.
As
in so many
historical societies, rule
came
to be based
primarily
on the
legends
created through war. But there
were
no
organized methods
to
validate the sole
legitimate
representa
tives."
Some
colonies
transformed
themselves into states
with demo
cratic institutions through referenda or plebiscites (Bechuanaland,
Cyprus, Zambia,
French Guinea, Nigeria,
Ghana,
Western Samoa), but
most
achieved
the change
through peaceful transfers to essentially self
proclaimed
and often
unrepresentative
political parties or movements
or through
armed
combat
in wars
of national
liberation."
. International legitimation of post-colonial states
2
l
:(Post-1945 states
were not
created solely
by
armed
national liberation
movements or by the co-opted indigenous elites of the colonial state.
The
United Nations, representing the international community and its
Inorms, was also involved in the state-making r o c e ~ _ s } I t participated in
~ r e e
ways: (1) by defining the territorial extent ana political forms
of
new states; (2) by establishing the philosophical and political ground
rules for de-colonization; and (3)
by
granting membership to the
organization and
providing the
new
states
with a
variety of
life-
support assistance.
The
role of
the United Nations
in
the proposed
1947
partition
of
Palestine
was
the first major effort by the
new
international
organiza
tion to define and
help
create states.
t
failed in this instance;
even if
the
Palestine Liberation Organization succeeds
in
transforming its jurisdic
tion in the Jericho and
Gaza
areas ultimately into a state encompassing
the West Bank as well, it will not have gained as much as the 1947
partition plan envisaged. On hindsight, the rejection of the United
Nations plan was
a major blunder by
the Arabs
and Palestinians.
More
instructive
in comparing
the pre-1919 and post-1945 state-
2
A more elaborate discussion of the role of the international community in creating
and
sustaining post-colonial states, states
imbued
with "negative sovereignty," is pre
sented in Jackson (1990). Some of the points below derive from his seminal discussion
of the problem.
73
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The
state war and th
'
estate of war
making processes .
Eritrea in arti IS the case of the
Ho . . . .
United N pti ~ J a r (Dubois 1994) E . m ot Atnca m general and
colony
a n ~ ~ r i S
m 1 ~ 4 9 because
. a r ~ t n a .
came
to
the attention of the
coloniall e . e wartime Allies wph
of had
Ol't'n a former Italian
gac1es w ' o
were
tl
They
th
f ' ere unable t 1
Y to cilspose of Axis
ere ore h d o agree am
The . an ed over th
ong themselves
on
its
future
orgaruzatio e Issue to th U . .
the problems n set up a comm . e
mted
Nations.
d
o
and
ISSIOn
to t
I
0
1spose of th recomrnend t h rave to f ~ n t r e a examine
e territ o t e G '
agree among th ory. The rnemb eneral Assemb ly how to
emselv ers of the
recommended full
.
es. The Guat comm1ss wn could not
d' mde
emalan
and fl
k
.
Irect trusteeshi B pendence aft a 1stam delegates
. p. urm , er
a
p d
~ I a n confederatio b
as
representar eno of United Nations
five-year perio d Thn ut With the
ri
h IVe proposed
an
Eritrean-Ethio-
E
'tr
. e No . g t
of
the f
n ea mto the Ethi . r w e g ~ a n del ormer to secede
after a
part of the t e r r i t o r y o ~ : a n empire, u t e ~ ~ proposed the integration
of
annexed to Sudan if detached and ft the
proviso
that the western
co_nsensus, the G e n e r a ~ ~ e p t e d by a'
~ e ~ ~
a_
period
of British rule, be
: ~ ~ . t h e
Ethiopian cro ss
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The
state war
' and
the
state ofwar
This interpreta .
ciated
thr
tion of self d
oughout th . - etermination I . I
\was thus to b e hlStory of th '
l.Js
1t>tn consistently enun
/authorization f e solely a vehicl f org.lnl/,ltion. Sdf-detennination
cia
--.
or subseq e
or
de 1
un_nR_timmood uent seces . co oni/,ltion, and notan
an
internation
1 . As
the late
c__
son divtrst groups that mi ht
' and d a organ Jt."Cretary c .
oes not IZation th
U .
.cneral U rn.mt stated
As
Princi 1 accept ' e mted
Nl
. ,
, P e
of
se
.
and I
do
. ' liOns
has
never
accepted
'Buckeit 19 esston of not behev' .t .
the . _ 8:
87).
Th a part of its
c
1
w l ever
accept the
. pomt m fightin e organization Member States" (quoted in
,no support g against
spent ov,
d
to
se . the Kat cr
:)(}()
m1lhon
to
make
anD elsewhere. esstonist movem a n g ~ secession in
1960
and
gave
e-colo ents
In
Tib , '
no int
~ a t i o n was
th et,
B1afra,
Bangladesh,
ernational s . e act of
characteristi ctutiny self-determ .
words, ex
. c ~ of
the
Post
or questionin matJon. There was to be
nity of citk: ly endorsed
c ~ ~ n i a l
state. ~ ~ f U t h ~ territorial or other
source. rather t-\..__ concept of th nted Nations, in other
.. ktl l on c e stat b
The proble
0
11Sanguini e
ased
on a commu
freedom fr m Was that th ty or some other "natural"
. . om
colo
. e
tlni
c_Itizenship
for th
r u a ~ rule
sh ted Nations .
tion was gr e
t e l l ' i t o . . ; ~ ~
ould also b . failed to stipulate that
th anted aim . lQ.l Pop la
.
nng . h .
ey had to d ost aut tion. "
Wtt
1t equal rights of
t th 0
Was Ontati
n
LVtembe
h. .
0
e Principles f PrOclaim th
ca
Y to the rs
1
P m the organiza
e
simple
devic:
United ~ : e l v e s p e a ~ ~ ~ l ~ freed colonies.
All
He new state accept : declaration ons Charter
~ - m g
and
committed
th the new gove e the o b l i g a t i ~ Inade in a fo
18
t ~ e y did through
e mternational
~ e n t s
ruled
ns of
the rmai
mstrument
that
{In 1919, the n : ~ e u u z a t i o n . their
reop?'arter
(Kelsen 19SZ: 67).
external . states f es Was f
rna. scrut iny before tho Eastern
b
o
no
concern to
)Or
powers d ey g
:.Uro
Nations _an thereb s amed di Pe
Were
.
for I .To gam recognitiy ubsequentPlomatic r subJect to intense
e echons . on, th
m-.. ecognr
com . ' evtdence of efc had
to
\..-:tbershi .
1
IOn from the
mitments to
1
ective l t lV P m th L f
possess t protect the
ri
rule
Of
e consti . e
eague
o
state Th he characteristics a
gdhts
of ntin and tutions, schedules
e underly . n hall-.
0
titi as not d
new stat mg prmciple
f ...
tarks es.
In
b . e ' vanous
made
c o ~ s d ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ p u l a r s o v e r e i ~ t h e
" r i g h ~ ~
t h e
l i b ~ ; ~
they
had to
was denied . upon domestic .
RecOSni.
rule'' . democratic
N
. or VIolated. lillprov-..
ion_
wa ~ t h e post-1919
o such q
rt
-.. en
s
etth
ua I Cations appl d ts Wh er denied or
Ie
to th ere th
p p .
1
76
OSt,194s nnctp
e
countn
es.
o one
The
creation
ofstates since
945
\inquired into the domestic politics of the new states? The United
Nations
did not
carry over the regime for protection of minorities
/ado?ted in the 1920s in Europ., Some members argued specifically
agamst such a regime on the grounds that official recognition of
'
r ~ i n ~ r i t y
status might weaken multi-ethnic st ates (Ryan 1990: 157)(Nor
d1d 1t require any evidence of the validation and legitimation of post
, colonial rule.
If
a
state had been born through
a
war
of national
liberation, it seemingly
had
more legitimacy than one that came into
, being
through
a plebiscite.
Armed
struggle
was
a validation
in
itselV'
FRELIMO, for example, was recognized as the legitimate representa
tive of the Mozambique national "self," not because it
was
elected, but
because it had
proved
itself
by
waging a successful military campaign
against Portugal. The same formula was adopted for Indonesia,
Algeria, Cyprus,
and
all the other states that were born through armed
fcombat. These struggles, then, were not regarded as a traditional war
\under Chapter VII
of the United Nations' Charter.
On
the contrary, the
: "Declaration
on
the Strengthening of International Security" (General
Assembly Resolution 2734, 1977) specifically urged rpember states to
; "increase their
support and
solidarity"
with
violent
n ~ t i o n a l
liberation
: ,movements, which were defined
by
the United N a t i o t ~ as a legitimate
, means of achieving independence from colonialism. ',,
While some jurisdictions legitimated themselves through elections or
plebiscites, most did not. Having been a colony was sufficient qualifi
cation for attaining immediate membership in the United Nations.
' ' There
was
to
be no
international scrutiny of post-colonial political
arrangements
and
practices.
It
was assumed tha t a constitution (some
times drafted with the help of United Nations officials)
and
adherence
to the United Nations Declaration on
Human
Rights (1948) were
_3 fficient to guarantee the full rights of citizenship.)
The United Nations thus validated new s t a ~ s without inquiring
whether
they
met
all four traditional qualifications of statehood:
(1)
a
defined territory; (2) a permanent population;
(3) an
effective govern
ment;
and
(4) the capacity to enter into treaty relations with other
3
Western governments' treatment of the former Soviet republics and socialist states
has
been substantially different, however. Since 1989, they have insisted that all post
socialist states commit themselves to market economies
and
democratic institutions if
they wish to obtain diplomatic recognition and various forms of aid. In the case of
many
of
the
former Soviet republics, the condition
has
been more rhetorical
than
real.
Despite professions of commitment to both principles, the politics of Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan, Georgia, and elsewhere in the former republics
have hardly
become
democratic (Kangas 1994;
and
for further discussion, Holsti 1994).
. j
-
8/11/2019 178018802 Kalevi Holsti the State War and the State of War Select Pages
23/24
The
state
war and the state of war
states.
t
is the